


The Adventures of Victor, the Transparent Transgender

by Dach



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: A Bit Not Good, Angst, Don't let the Title Influence Your Opinion, Homophobes Everywhere, Humor, Kidnapping, Let's Delve a Little Deeper into Sherlock's Past, M/M, Male OC - Freeform, Observing Observations, Sherlock is a God, Surprise this was actually requested holy crap I have friends, This is Surprisingly Angsty, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-15
Updated: 2017-03-15
Packaged: 2018-10-05 08:03:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10301768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dach/pseuds/Dach
Summary: Victor is a trans male, not that he'd ever manage to be confident enough to say it out loud. As a matter of fact, he would rather inform someone of his slight obsession with Sherlock Holmes. And, also a matter of fact, he would much rather have someone to inform of such a thing. Victor, the 'transparent transgender,' as he has privately dubbed himself, tends to avoid his family at all costs, peruse the newspaper stories about Holmes, and walk the circuit that is London streets. It's a busy schedule, if he does say so himself, and not one that allows for friends.So what will happen when a newspaper runs a story mentioning that Holmes will be investigating a crime scene near Victor himself? And what will happen when Victor decides to observe Sherlock observe? Andwhatwill happen when Victor is taken with the Sherlock and his companions as a kidnapping makes itself known?





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SmellyCats](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SmellyCats/gifts).



> This fic is for my best friend, Aaron, who's trying to figure things out. I love you, Aaron!

    Victor carded his fingers through his hair with a sigh. It was too short again. For Victor, haircuts were something complex, and not something to be neglected when planning. Hair that was too long appeared too feminine. And then again, if it was too short - as he currently felt it was - it would do nothing but emphasize his rounded jawline. The hems of his jeans dragged the ground. He groaned and leaned against the brick wall of some store, meticulously tucking his dark brown hair underneath a newsboy cap and awkwardly lifting his ankles to fold up the bottoms of his pants. Once satisfied, he resumed his brisk walk. He did his best to ignore how some people glanced back at him, knowing that they couldn’t possibly _know_ , but subconsciously lengthening his stride nonetheless.

    In a move befitting his hat, he nicked one of newspapers from the stand outside a shop, tucking it underneath his bulky black coat and veering into an alley to read it. The alleyway was pre-occupied, as it turned out, and the glare that the two graffiti artists directed at Victor was enough to make him turn and flee. It was a good five minutes before he resumed a pace that could be deemed ‘unhurried’.

    Stifling a sigh, he strode across the pavement, ignoring the nipping cold and squinting as the bright gray clouds cast unnecessarily harsh light upon the busy street. Victor did his best to forget how such lighting always made his olive skin appear yellow, and, coupled with his short stature, it did not cast him in the most flattering of light. When, at long last, he finally reached the harbor, idly humming a tune that he couldn’t remember the source of, he thanked practically every deity that his ‘Religion in Language’ textbook had taught him about.

    He plopped himself onto one of the benches by the port rail and withdrew his newspaper but had hardly scanned across the first half of the page before he noticed a certain short news column. His eyes widened with disbelief. Victor had to re-read the passage several times before he managed to even consider the possibility that it wasn’t a joke.

* * *

 

_Citizen’s Death Baffles Police_

_Freddy Lounds_

_February 3rd, 12:09AM_

_Last night, at what inspectors believe to be approximately midnight, John Lewis appeared smashed in between a boat and the London Port dock. Now, this might not be shocking, if Mr. Lewis had not been reported missing for ten years. Owner of earlier stated boat, Benjamin Barker, made a panicked call to emergency dispatchers upon seeing that his fishing boat was spattered with gore. Dispatchers do not believe Mr. Barker to be the perpetrator of this crime, but he is being detained (willingly) nonetheless._

_This would be a puzzling case enough without the inclusion of the fact that the late Mr. Lewis doesn’t appear to have aged a day since his disappearance, yet he appears to have died only hours prior to his discovery. I reiterate for those who have not yet caught it; Mr. Lewis should have appeared ten years older, if what inspectors believe is to be correctly understood. London’s resident “highly functional sociopath,” as stated by Mr. Holmes himself, told me, during our short conference, that he would most certainly be looking into this mystery. May we rest assured that Sherlock Holmes is on the case!_

 

* * *

 

    Victor glanced around the port of London as discreetly as he could manage. To think that Sherlock Holmes may have been- or would be- _here!_ Victor was an admirer of the famous detective; he was one of many, though, as the man’s avid shrewdness and frequent antics won him many fans. Indeed, if one managed to catch Victor off-guard while he was on one of his frequent walks, he might even admit that he had tried to bribe members of Holmes’s homeless network into divulging his location on multiple occasions. He had never once succeeded.

    That was when a cabbie pulled into the port and _a man in a black trenchcoat stepped out of it!_ Victor very near flailed in his rush to get to his feet, and he darted closer as another man in a brown jacket followed the first. Victor’s mind automatically supplied the man’s name; _Doctor Watson._ Now that he was closer to the scene, Victor realized that a familiar face was trailing behind the two, commenting loudly in annoyed brogue. _Gregory Lestrade._ The three men ducked behind unguarded crime-scene tape, and, after shooting a nervous glance around at his surroundings, Victor did the same. He ignored the feeling of his heart rising to his throat as he stepped cautiously around a pole, trying to forget that if he was caught, not only would is stain his blemish-free record (which was unfortunately important, to people of any race other than caucasian), but it would also ensure that he was dropped off at home with his ‘family’. _So I won’t get caught,_ he determined.

    The male slunk behind the abandoned booth where one would normally pay parking fare, his steps seeming unnervingly loud on the wooden boards of the dock. The instant that he left the cover of the small house, a barely-quashed squeak rose in his throat. Sherlock Holmes was approximately three feet in front of him. As was Watson. As was Lestrade. And all were staring fixedly at a spot about two feet above Victor’s head. Suddenly, his mouth was very dry.

    Being as cautious as he could manage, so as not to draw their eyes to his form, Victor backed up. Their gaze wasn’t diverted by his movement, and he sank into the shadows with a sigh or relief. _Safe._ And _HOLY SHIT,_ Holmes and Watson were standing _right frickin’ in front of him!_ Doing his best to level his breathing, he crouched against the clapboard siding of the small building.

    Holmes’s lips were moving his lips silently, his brow furrowed; in the meantime, Watson just looked confused as hell; DI Lestrade appeared to have already given up. Suddenly, Holmes’s eyes widened, and he inhaled sharply at a volume that Victor could hear from the shadows. Clearly, he had solved whatever little puzzle they had been presented. Watson glanced towards his co-worker expectedly, but did not seem to expect the clipped, ‘run,’ that he received. Victor felt his heart skip a beat as the three men turned to flee, only for the dock to begin quaking beneath them. Victor was hurled to wooden boards as the shaking intensified, immediately exposed to Holmes, Watson, and Lestrade.

    His throat seemed to physically tighten as he realized that despite the trembling of the very dock beneath them, their gazes were fixed on the younger male. He was caught.

    Offhandedly, Victor noted that his cheeks had heated to a level normally associated with an iron.

    He didn’t have much time to dwell on his embarrassment, though; the dock tilted sickeningly, and threw them all to the side. It righted soon enough, but the hasty banking had hurled Victor across the splintery, wet boards until his stomach made bruising connection of the cold railing. As he bent over the metal in effort to ease the abrupt, inevitable stop, Victor felt the dock tilt up again. The treacherous dock brought him closer and closer and closer to the water, until he seemed to be kneeling on the railing. He realized belatedly that he had squeezed his eyes shut.

    Victor opened his eyes, and felt the world around him freeze. His breath seemed to escape him in a slow huff of fog. Not two inches in front of his nose, underneath the chilly water of the Thames, were the reaching tendrils of seaweed, buffeted slightly by the disturbance the dock was causing and advancing from dimmed depths. As he watched, underwater currents sent ripples through the plant, the murky green seeming to reach for him, to drag him down, as if they came from a monster that lurked just out of sight. Victor noticed that the dock was banking again, and that the mesmerizing, terrifying hold that the sight had on him seemed to be pulling him over the rail to remain in it.

    Or maybe it didn’t ‘seem’ anything, he realized. He was overbalanced; bent  over the rail so that his entire torso was hanging over open water. He tried to tighten his grip as he began to tip and fall, but his knuckles were already white with the force with which he was clutching the bar.

    At once, he snapped out of the distant hold the seaweed seemed to place him under, kicking and feeling himself being pushed over the rail by the chaotic movement of the dock underneath him. Just before his grip could be wrenched away and he could fall, Victor felt a hand grabbing the back of his shirt, yanking him back with a quiet curse. The collar of his zipped-up jacket went uncomfortably tight at the base of his throat as he fell back over; he almost laughed at the pettiness of the silent complaint of a tight collar in comparison to what was currently happening.

    The dock careened back down, slapping the water and sending spray everywhere. With more force than gravity should warrant, Victor felt himself slammed to the hard wood. At once, he was closing his eyes and gasping for breath as he felt his ribs forced down by the pressing of the abrupt stop, his ears ringing and every inch of his body aching; his binder had done absolutely nothing to cushion the fall, and he feared for his spine.

    _How do stunt doubles make falling down look so painless in action movies!?_

    The world was uncharacteristically silent for a couple moments, and then Victor opened his eyes. The dock rocked through the aftershocks of the chaos. The crime scene was apparently far enough away for a majority of pedestrians not to take notice, and those who had were doing nothing more than blinking dumbly, as if they thought they had gone on some involuntary, impromptu, alcohol-free bender. Granted, Victor was still pondering the same thing.

    His neck screamed abuse as he turned his head enough to glance at the man kneeling above him. Something seemed to lodge in his throat: Sherlock Holmes was scowling most disapprovingly at his prone body. Above him, the two other men loomed.

‘ _That sounds so wrong out of context,’_ Victor thought during a momentary mental pause of hysteria.

    A groaning drew their attention before anybody could speak, and they glanced towards the point where the dock met the pier. Instead of the solid connection provided by rope, wood, and metal, shards of what were previously solid wood boards jutted unevenly. Watson swore softly, and then another shudder ran through the dock. After a few more creaks, the dock stopped shaking and began to glide smoothly through the water. Watson moved for the edge, probably to jump off and swim to shore, but Sherlock snagged the back of his sodden jacket.

    “Don’t,” he said, when the doctor opened his mouth to protest. The detective motioned towards a tugboat a way off, and at the various rowboats which had somehow managed to creep closer without alerting them. Upon squinting, Victor could detect a device at the back of the faraway tugboat, and the men in the rowboats looked remarkably uniform. “Blowdarts. Look at the people in the boats. Observe the position of their hands.”

    “What?” Watson demanded. When Sherlock sent him a raised eyebrow, the doctor groaned. “Look! I don’t have my glasses, alright!?”

    Sherlock smirked slightly. “The boat a ways out has a pulley on the backboard; no doubt it acts as a support to the grounded winch connected to this platform. Judging by the lack of scuffing where it would normally be docked, and the shine of the metal, the boat is either new, or expensive. If we are to judge by the antennae on the cabin, I would say expensive. Furthermore, we are being surrounded by rowboats. The Thames rarely ever hosts such boats, and when it does, they are nearly always rented and few in number. The surprising increase of them today shows that this was most definitely orchestrated. And those are homeless marines.”

    That seemed to be the breaking point for Lestrade, because he burst out, “ _How_ do you know that?”

    Sherlock shot him an amused glance. Same way I knew John was retired from Afghanistan.”

    John groaned and joined the conversation. “You didn’t _explicitly_ know that!” Sherlock waved an uncaring hand.

    “If you gave me enough time, I would have. Point is, look; all of the men wear their hair not shorn short, but not long, and it’s shaggy like a grown out crew-cut. Most men in sailing clubs- which is an alternative explanation for this abundance of boats- wear their hairstyles varied, and most certainly not in this style. Their backs are ramrod straight, and one of them is holding their fishing rod backwards. They are wearing lacking fishing gear, and sneakers. No doubt they were long ago collected. I must have a talk with my network about recognizing any side effects that a sudden collection of these men would have caused sooner. Isn’t it obvious?”

    “Isn’t _what_ obvious!?” Watson demanded. The detective groaned.

   “You silly man,” Sherlock Holmes said, “we’re being kidnapped.”

**Author's Note:**

> HEY  
> HEY, READER  
>   
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